Hafta letters: NL Reads, corruption in Punjab, Mukesh Khanna’s comments

Hi,

I've been a subscriber for the past one year and haven't missed any Hafta or Charcha. Superbly enjoy Abhinandan's moderation of Hafta, but really wish Mr Raman would speak more. He always seems to speak from practical experiences and insights which are enjoyable.

1) I listened to a few episodes of Ye Bhi Theek Hai. While the episodes on comedians (Ep 1) and free speech (Ep 3) were really good, the others (eg. religion, secularism) showed their lack of depth in those topics. I wish they would fix a topic beforehand and do a little bit of homework at least. Or maybe I'm being unfair expecting the quality of The Media Rumble here.

2) I'm a digital marketing professional with Big Tech and was wondering if there are any opportunities to help out Newslaundry regarding awareness, customer acquisitions, etc, as a volunteer.

3) Since Newsance and Tippani are hugely popular, why not promote some of NL’s reports and articles there as well? Might drive some new subscriptions.

Anonymous

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Hi team,

Was listening to Hafta 393 and the piece on Mukesh Khanna. I’m not trying to defend the man and frankly his YouTube channel (Bhisma) is full of hateful and misogynistic content. The particular episode in question though, when I listened to it, I thought he was referring to the incidents of online sex rackets where gullible, sex-deprived Indian laundes are laundered by their equally deprived opportunist cousins from Jamtara! In fact, Mukesh also speaks about the messages – he continuously refers to how his number gets into circulation is another matter.

Other aspects I want to suggest: While Manisha has done a fantastic job in exposing the news media, what we do find missing is stories on good work done by the media (Charcha has a section) and the opposition. We’re so lost in Modi bashing and praising that there is absolutely no coverage of the alternative to Modi on the national stage. Not to take political sides, but an actual show on resistance and reforms would be welcome.

You guys are wonderful!

Kumud Shankar

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Hello Abhinandan, happy to see you are getting back with your interview show. I got hooked up with it somewhere between 2013 or 14. Been a follower since then. Looking forward to conversations.

Welcome back Manisha, missed you last week.

Shashank

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Keep up the good work, NL team. Hafta is my weekly news dose. I mainly consume NL podcasts while walking, exercising. And I cannot get to the ground report reads. Recently I discovered NL Reads and Reporters Without Orders, where reporters talk about their ground reports. Very interesting. Please keep all ground reports coming in NL Reads and Reporters Without Orders for audio consumers.

Puneet

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Hey guys, I had been trying to listen to Hafta all Sunday on August 21. I deleted the app, reinstalled it and tried to listen to it from the website too, but it just would not load. I tried all your other podcasts. They were working, but not Hafta. Well, I know that Ravish Kumar, who is my absolute favourite anchor, gets blocked from various places all the time. I am wondering if you guys are now on that list. Would appreciate it if you could look into it.

I am really enjoying the Ye Bhi Theek Hai podcast. So irreverent and insightful, though I disagree with Kunal that all books are dead! Well, they become what we imagine them to be.

Big fan of NL. Keep up the good work and waiting patiently for your app to work properly.

Love Mehraj’s “always deep take” on stuff. Hope I will be able to listen to Hafta once you guys fix the issue.

Vee

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Hello NL team,

I just wanted your opinion on the ongoing corruption cases in Punjab. Three ex-Congress ministers are already in jail and ex-chief minister Channi has been out of the country for the last four months. Majithia got the bail and he is challenging Channi to come back. Majithia claims that he has more proof of corruption against Channi. People want to get rid of BJP, but the other option they got is highly corrupted Congress, which is so bad at hiding its scams. I am a regular listener of all the podcasts of NL. Waiting for LTA Punjab series.

Pinder Gill

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Hello NL team. I really like the NL team (all of them), but feel that it still focuses on the northern part of the country a lot. Sad to see Meghnad move out. He was such a wonderful person to listen to. I normally listen to the podcasts and rarely read anything that is written. But it has been working well for me so far. Subscriptions are good and look inexpensive to me (NRI), but it's definitely not that easy to convince a daily news consumer to pay. What is the plan for NL to really reach the masses?

Jeeth

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Now that NDTV has been compromised, what are we doing to bring in Ravish Kumar to be a permanent member of Hafta/Charcha?

Aroun Dalawat